Burma Pistachio Baklava

The plate of baklava is piled high with rounds of pastry sweets. It hides within crinkling curtains of plastic, tied with a ribbon to make a protective casing.

Then the ribbon is cut and the plate is placed on the table.

There’s at least three or four varieties before me. I’m not a huge fan of the most common baklava, the layers of pastry and honey, so what else do we have?

Hmm, slices of a cylinder. The outside looks like golden vermicelli, tightly-packed, wrapped in a thick doughy layer around a very green filling. Pistachio I’m guessing, from the context.

Yup, give that a go. Hopefully the large chunk of filling will make it moist.

Picking it up. It’s densely heavy for its size.

Bite. Urk, my teeth are almost stuck. The pastry is chewy and solid, initially giving way and then needing to be torn to break it. Little noodle-like flakes of pastry splinter and fall into my lap. The pastry is sweet and buttery, but not overly sugary. It reminds me of honey, a little. I think they’re soaked in syrup.

Eating enough pastry to get a clear go at the green nutty filling. There are small hunks of pistachio mixed with a fluro-green paste. Disconcerting taste, a bit salty, buttery, but sweet with pistachio notes. Almost creamy, the weird part. The filling is so crumbly when against the pastry it’s hard to eat them both at once; they have to be bitten in completely different ways.

It’s okay. Actually my mouth is tired from the effort of the pastry. About the same as regular baklava. But more nuts makes it more healthy, right?

Yeah, right.

Rating:

Specifics: Burma pistachio baklava, bought in Bankstown